In an effort to compete with Reliance Jio and Vodafone, Airtel has now launched a new prepaid plan for a price of Rs 219.
Under this plan, customers will get 1.4GB of 3G/4G data along with 100 free SMSes per day. Additionally, customers will also get unlimited calling for a period of 28 days. The company has bundled up free Hello Tunes for the same validity period as well.
Recently, reports surfaced stating that the changed dynamics in the telecom sector due to the entry of Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Jio might lead to the first quarterly loss of Sunil Mittal's firm in 15 years.
Airtel's constant falling revenue due to an intense price war in the industry has made it difficult for the firm to cope up. But giving the current scenario, experts believe that Bharti Airtel after reporting 39.3 per cent drop in consolidated net profit for the third quarter of the FY18, it could end up posting a loss in the March quarter, a first in 60 quarters (or 15 years) on falling revenue and rising costs.
The last time the firm reported a loss was in the December 2002 quarter, when the figure came in at a negative Rs 70.70 million. For Q3, Airtel had posted net profit of Rs 306 crore for the third quarter of 2017-18 compared to Rs 504 crore posted during the corresponding period in 2016-17.
The total revenue of the company stood at Rs 20,319 crore for the third quarter of 2017-18 compared to Rs 23,336 crore posted during the third quarter of 2016-17. It was a drop of 12.9 per cent.
Meanwhile, for Reliance Jio the picture is still rosy and will remain like this at least for near future, experts say. The Ambani's firm had posted its first-ever net profit of Rs 504 crore for the three months period ended December 2017, the second quarter of commercial operations. The company had incurred a loss of Rs 271 crore in the September quarter.
Reliance Jio entered the highly-competitive telecom sector in September 2016 with a six-month promotional offer of free voice and data, a strategy that helped it mobilise millions of users.Jio threw an open challenge to the incumbent telecom operators with its disruptive tariffs, triggering a price war that saw severe bloodletting in the sector in following months.
